Preview: Cesar Millan at the Palace

When it's time to pick out a new dog, don't let the fluff cloud your judgment.

When it’s time to pick out a new dog, don’t let the fluff cloud your judgment.

“Everybody in my experience focuses on nice color, fluffiness,” dog whisperer Cesar Millan explained. “Nobody really focuses on, ‘What energy am I, and how much energy do I have when I finish work?’”

Millan, who’s famous for correcting the behavior of both dogs and humans on his National Geographic Channel show, said that if you’re not a particularly active person, you should choose a low-energy dog.

“When you are ready to get a dog, make sure you maintain good logic and don’t let the heart pick the dog,” he said. And once you get the puppy home, the most important thing to teach it is to be comfortable with separation. Don’t spend all day with the new pet if you’re usually going to be at work.

“From day one, you have to tell them how his life is going to look, otherwise you give him a mental shock because one day nobody was home,” Millan explained.

This weekend Millan brings his live show — which features a pack of pooches — to the Palace Theatre, where he’ll teach the methods he uses on his TV show to help dogs reach “a calm, submissive state.”

“The TV show shows you the strategy and the outcome, but we never show you the fundamentals,” Millan explained. “There’s three things you need in a relationship: trust, respect and loyalty — with humans, dogs, or I don’t care who you want to have this relationship. So how did you obtain that? And how does a dog know that you are creating trust? You get to see live how this is developed and how to implement it.”